What is your favorite over-looked movie?

What film do you just love the hell out of that never seemed to find an audience, or developed a small cult following only? And please entice us with a description.

In my case, it's "Ginger Snaps," a Canadian horror film that is so perverse and funny. Two goth teen sisters have a symbiotic relationship that is threatened when the older of the two is bitten by a werewolf. She is chosen by the creature because she is on her period, and a lot of analogies are made between blooming womanhood and lycanthropy. The interplay between the two actresses, as well as Mimi Rogers as their clueless, David Lynchian mom, is priceless. It has a sequel out in Canuk theaters now. Part One is available at Blockbuster, etc, and 2 comes straight to video in April.

n/t

Terry Gilliam is God.

Also : Time Travelers

& Kelly's Heroes !

& Westworld (They should re-make this one with digital tech)

:thumbsup:

Totally Forgetable : Howard The Duck (G.Lucas second worst script after "Attack of the Clones) :thumbsdown:

...as are many Terry Gilliam movies: Brazil, Fisher King, Time Bandits...

They've been playing it on cable recently, so I got to find out again how good it was

From the 1960s:
Lord Love A Duck
You're A Big Boy Now
The President's Analyst
The Loved One

Recent:
Waterworld
The Postman
Ghost World
Welcome To The Dollhouse
Black Man's Burden

I could think of more if I had more time.

--bkl

with Robert DeNiro, Jerry Lewis, and Sandra Bernhardt--a wicked satire on celebrity and those obsessed with them. What of Scorcese best films and when it was released in 1983 it died at the box office and has since become a sort of cult classic.

With Alan Arkin and Peter Falk.

A classic. WTF with that remake?

good choice.

Loved that movie.

ever made, ca. 1975.

Check out the last scene with the audience joining in, singing "It Don't Worry Me . . .", the anthem of the average apathetic American.
Lots of good music and acting. Stars Karen Black, Henry Gibson, Geraldine Chaplin, Keith Caradine, Lily Tomlin, Ned Beatty, and Shelly Duval with cameos by Jeff Goldblum, Eliot Gould.

I always thought that was pretty clever - the way they interspersed movies from the same era they were sending up, and Steve's "private eye" talk ala "I hadn't seen a body put together like that since I solved the case of the Murdered Girl with the Big Tits." Plus, Rachel Ward was beautiful in it.

TlalocW

Love that movie!

sift sift sift sift sift sift sift sift sift sift sift sift sift sift

Great film. Love the whole hero becomes sidekick, sideckick becomes hero feel to the film.

It's also a pretty quotable movie.

"It's all in the reflexes."

It reminded me of Ginger Snaps in that it was a Lynchian horror film with a healthy dose of wink win nudge nudge.

MAY MAY MAY MAY !*#$)*@#)*!

Mother alwasy said make your own friends.

What a terrific film!

Here's one now playing in NY/LA, and not to be missed: "Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself." Trust me, it's better than the title.

"B-but we've always been Church of England!"


I'll seek out "Wilbur." I've heard it's great.

Ever see Brittania Hospital? Another very black comedy...

I think I'd agree with just about all of them.

...makes a good double-bill with VANISHING POINT (original with Barry Newman.)

Didn't make enough money, and the critics turned on it after release, even the ones that praised it before it's release. I believe it has a following though. Definitely one of my all time favorites.

Adbusters in convenient movie form...

"We're a generation of men raised by women... somehow, I don't think another woman is the answer."

but i realize that bukowski will never draw a large following.

I liked that movie even though I hate Mickey Rourke and somewhat dislike Faye Dunaway.

i really think it was m.r.'s best performance...truly humanized a hardcore alcoholic, and gave me a (admittedly romanticized) glimpse into the inner workings of a prototypical street-junkie genious.

"No, I don't hate cops... I just feel better when they're not around." --great line

I've been on this board numerous times recommending the movie "Happy Accidents" starring Marisa Tomei and Vincent D'Onofrio. An absolutely wonderful movie that was unfortunately released the week of the terrorist attacks and soon forgotten--if anyone really noticed it.

Sort of a rap version of "Spinal Tap". Writen by & staring Rusty Cundieff who now directs for Dave Chappelle's show on Comedy Central


http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0106880/

Edward Norton, directed by Spike Lee.
A Walk on the Moon, with Diane Lane and Viggo Mortenson.
Love and Basketball, with Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan.

highly underrated film, that.

better than most of the tongue-in-cheek "characters in a horror movie know all the horror movie tricks" crap that came out after "scream". funny riff on "the thing" mid-way into the movie.

Willem Dafoe, Michael Pare, The Blasters, Amy Madigan, and others. Very cool set design and photography, cool story.

I remember the first sight of Willem Dafoe's face in the audience. Probably his first movie role--you just knew he was going to be trouble.

(Ray Liotta's appearance in Something Wild had the same effect; that cheerful, quirky movie suddenly became quite dark.)

Back to Streets of Fire--and, of course, there were The Blasters.

although it wasn't really overlooked per se. Same with "The Big Lebowski".

No one seems to know what I am talking about, but damn this is a good movie.

Look out, this kid Pacino is gonna be a STAR!

one of the very greatest movies ever made. And thoroughly underrated.

I liked both of them. Flame away! :)

But I don't know that it is that overlooked. Don't know.
Sheen is great, Malik's first film - wow
great music. loved the closing credits ( Carl Orff - Musica Poetica)

...in Tony Scott's film of the Tarantino screenplay for "True Romance," which had many of the same themes as "Badlands," but was a far inferior film. Anyone who loves American cinema needs to see "Badlands." In my opinion.

in Finding Forrester....and by Miss Nancy in her dance school. lol
Did you know that the Orff music was from (English) "Schoolwork"?
It was simple studies used for teaching children.
Orff is such a genius that even his simple lessons are wonderful
( the rest of Schoolwork is not as listen-able, I will admit)

and easily transcends the genre of "young killers in love"

.
.
.

I rented the video over 10 years ago, and I don't think I've EVER seen it on TV or mentioned anywhere



Saga about an eccentric but genius inventor who is sickened by the blighted landscape of the U.S. and so moves his family to the rain forests of Central America to start a utopian society. But things don't go as planned as Dad goes mental and turns into an iron-fisted tyrant. Based on the novel by Paul Theroux.

His rants about the demise of America was just 20 years or so ahead of its time.

sayles made a classic. it should be seen in every high school history class in america.

also, i consider the director's cut of heaven's gate in the same league.

he's the bestest.

Great movie and even better book. :thumbsup:

is great!!!

Just got done w/The Fourth Hand.

Bittersweet and oddball, lots of quirky characters, beautiful Scottish locales, excellent performances and a memorable score by Mark Knopfler.

same writer/director

bella!

Sometimes, my favorite film.





Ruby in Paradise - 1993, directed by Victor Nunez

Thanks for reminding me.

Billy Wilder and James Cagney. Really funny cold war comdey that is fast paced and mad cap. It is a sort of precurser to "The Russians are coming".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055256/

"Miller's Crossing" may be the Coen brother's best ever. It's certainly an amazing film. It made nada, zip, zero at the box-office. It's only recently been released on DVD. As for "Marvin Gardens," if some of you young folks want to know why the aged, bloated, smarmy, coke-smeared carcass of a Lakers fan known as Jack Nicholson is considred one of THE great film actors, you have only to see this film, along with "Five Easy Pieces." Both represent the best of American filmmaking, from a sadly long-gone era.

One of the best films ever made that explores the human heart, "Shirley Valentine" begins with a bored British housewife who aches for "the girl who used to be me." Shirley Valentine was the rebel, the smart-mouth, the girl who would dare to do what other girls only dreamed of having the nerve to try. Now she's Shirley Bradshaw, a 42-year-old housewife with 2 grown kids and a husband she feels doesn't love her anymore. This movie is about how a fortnight's holiday alone (more or less - she arrives with a friend who promptly ditches her) in Greece enables her to find Shirley Valentine again. Funny, witty, heartwarming, inspiring, sentimental without being syrupy, "Shirley Valentine" is for all of us who've ever wondered if we made the right choices in life -- and if it's too late to take some of them back. Pauline Collins deserved the Oscar she was nominated for (too bad she didn't get it), with one of the best performances by an actor ever put onto film. The perfect movie to watch whenever you are "down in the dumps," this film will cheer you up and give you hope, each and every time.

or Harlan County, USA

If Barbara Kopple had made no other film than this documentary account of the 1974 strike of Kentucky mine workers, arguably one of the finest documentaries ever made in the U.S. and possibly the best on the problems of organized labor, her place in film history would be assured. The strike began when the miners working for the Eastover Mining Co. joined the UMW, and its corporate parent, Duke Power, refused to sign the standard union contract. By living with the 180-odd families involved in the strike, Kopple shows the backbreaking burdens of the miners' life in the best of times and the looming fear of destitution in the worst. As the strikers strive to remain united through a difficult year, Kopple photographs the picketing, the company's use of state troopers to keep the roads open for scabs, the showdowns between the miners and strikebreakers brandishing firearms. After several shootings, one miner is finally killed. During the man's wake, a memorable sequence, his mother collapses. While the film is unabashedly partisan, it's worth remembering that the company's refusal to sign a contract was condemned by the National Labor Relations Board and that the corporation agreed to sign only under heavy pressure from federal mediators. The Oscar-winning Harlan County, USA, is a landmark in the history of American documentary filmmaking.

:loveya:

Other fave underrated movies-

Dogma (If it counts as underrated?)

The Big Blue (terrible plot, brilliant scenery)

My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away

Big Trouble in Little China (husband hates it, might be grounds for divorce)

Big Lebowski

Hope and Glory

5th Element

12 Monkeys

I caught that movie on Cinemax one day and really loved it.

That reminds me of a two other movies that I love (which could also be considered overlooked gems.)

Secrets and Lies

and

Muriel's Wedding

If you liked Shirley Valentine, you would probably like those.

I saw it with my former partner, who is an adoptee, and whose mother tried her best to keep that secret. The film had a big impact on both of us.

After Hours. Griffen Dunn is the luckless guy, a classic.
3 Kings. Critics called it "Darkly subversive". That will teach people to trust the U.S. when we ask you to "rise up and overthrow saddam" bush elder said that, the bastard. Whole families wiped out.

Not much of a renter--but, surely, it should have been re-run on TV? With all the channels available on digital cable?

I can't remember seeing it scheduled in the last year or so. Don't you think a movie about Gulf War I would be timely here in the times of Gulf War II? Maybe too timely.

seen it on tv, other then a brief time on HBO.
I got a DVD copy at my local pawn shop.
Lots of stuff to choose from there these days...sigh.

Tom Hanks is a struggling medical student & stand-up comic; Sally Field is the somewhat typical bored housewife who loves to make people laugh and tries her hand on improv stages.

I can't give you the kind of review that'll whet your appetite, but I promise you'll laugh and cry and get pissed and you'll really like the end.

Moon Over Parador...Richard Dreyfuss
Somewhere in Time...Christopher Reeve/Jane Seymore

(I am a romantic):loveya:

Weird French movie with a dog that thinks.

the GREATEST B-movie ever made (roll over Nicholas Ray and tell Samuel Fuller the news) A masterpiece that she directed before turning to big budget garbage like "Wayne's World" and "The Beverly Hillbillies"
Bonus: Maxwell Caulfield's performance is one of the screen's best.
The movie has recently been released on DVD. Give it a try.

I just loooove that movie.

A Canadian film written, directed by Don McKellar (who also was in the cast). The premise of the film is that the world is going to end in 24 hours (it's never explained how the world will end...and nothing can be done to avert it).

It's a marvelous character driven film witb an intriguing idea...how would people spend their last moments on Earth...and with whom.

Terry

mckellar is an amazing actor/director/writer. sort of the orson welles of canada. and he frequently collaborates with sarah polley, canada's greatest actress/activist

Maybe my favorite movie of all time. A smart, funny flick retelling Hamlet from the eyes of its two least significant characters. Stellar performances by Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Richard Dreyfuss and many others...

Makes a great double feature with Hamlet. Perfect casting, and Richard Dreyfuss is outstanding. I especially like the tiny little motif of Oldham accidentally discovering various scientific principles throughout the movie.

Falling Down (laid-off engineer goes postal in a literal exercise of film formula structure)
Soapdish (great Soap opera farce with a brilliant Kevin Kline)
Backbeat (charming story of the Beatles early days... great music!)
The Thing Called Love (country songwriter yarn with a lot of heart and some great songs)
Hudson Hawk (much maligned but a guilty pleasure of a mess)
Ishtar (see Hudson Hawk)
Making Mr. Right (dumb, but Ann Magnuson shines, with a good Malkovich performance)
The Big Town (Matt Dillon's finest, with a hot, hot Diane Lane as a stripper)
How to Get Ahead in Advertising (Richard E. Grant illustrates what adverising is all about)
Adventures in Babysitting (Elisabeth Shue is sweet as pie... lots of fun.)
Three to Tango (my favorite pick-me-up movie. Fluffy mistaken "identity" flick)
Cold Turkey (best anti-tobacco comedy ever made... with Bob Newhart!)
Defending Your Life (Albert Brooks explains the meaning of life)

...and of course, DC Cab (dopey story, but some amazing performances, especially from Gary Busey, Whitman Mayo, and Charlie Barnett -- view without prejudice)

Hardly any of these are on DVD, but are all worth tracking down. IMHO. :)

I never would have seen "Born Romantic" if I didn't read the movie reviews in the New York Times. The damn movie didn't even PLAY in my area, but I found it at the video store.

Basically, it's the story of six very dysfunctional people who meet up at a salsa club in London and stumble their way through dance and their new-found relationships. Playing Greek chorus to all this are a bunch of sad-sack cab drivers.

"A Midwinter's Tale" concerns a group of actors trying to mount a production of "Hamlet" over the Christmas holidays with minimal budget and cast, including a Gertrude with testosterone and prosthetic breasts. I never feel quite as cynical about the human race after watching it. Big plus: Use of Noel Coward vocals ("Why Must the Show Go on?") as a segue and for montages.

and basically any Coen brothers film, though they are getting attention these days

but its brilliant.

Paul Newman especially.

Roberto Benigni got recognition for Life is Beautiful, a film that I think is one of the best ever, but many haven't seen either of these comic gems. Clever and funny as hell. Watch them with subtitles. ANYONE would like these movies for their clever comic gags.

Modern audiences often think Charlie Chaplin was all about slipping on banana peels and silly physical comedy, and that he is no longer relevant. Check out City Lights, and when you have been moved to tears and laughed out loud alternately throughout the whole movie, you will know otherwise. Made at a time when talkie movies were the new big thing, Chaplin showed the world that silent films could be potent...maybe much more so than any movies that have come since.

Do yourself a favor and open your eyes to silent films.

Other Chaplin gems: The Gold Rush, The Great Dictator, Modern Times...heck most of them.

I think City Lights is the greatest film ever made, bar none.

It got bad reviews, and it's 4 hours long, but I think it's one of the best films ever. Shot entirely with natural light, Kubrick used Zeiss lenses made for NASA to film the indoor scenes that were shot by candlelight.

It's a period piece that I can only describe as beautiful people in beautiful settings (it seriously looks like a moving oil painting) doing horrible things to each other. Amazing characterizations.

Also, don't watch it on a tv if you can avoid it--this is something that should be seen on the big screen.

...is that Chaplin almost drove himself insane and his production into the pits by agonizing for *months* over how to put together the scene where Charlie meets the blind girl. How to establish with the audience that the blind girl has mistaken Charlie for a rich man when he is really an impoverished homeless man?

Days upon days of production were lost as Chaplin struggled to find the right answer.

When you see the final cut, it is so perfect and elegant that he makes it look easy.

Chaplin was one of film's true geniuses, and few, if any, have touched him since.

He shot that scene something like 200 times.

He really was a genius. And still the only person in the history of Hollywood to fulfill every major role in the production of a film: star, director, writer, producer, composer, choreographer, etc. Mikhail Baryshnikov once said that he thought Chaplin would have been the greatest dancer in the history of the world if he had wanted to. :-)

OK, my last one, but if you haven't seen Buster Keaton, go check out Sherlock Junior, now on DVD. This film has incredible special effects for the 20's and is really funny. Also, bear in mind that Keaton was raised in vaudville, so the physical gags you see are real. He is really running along a train (he broke his collar bone and didn't know it filming this), he is really narowly missing cars on a bike, he really dives into a dress to escape the bad guys...you get the ide. From a bygone time when you had to *do* something to make it appear on film. Keaton's deadpan character is *hilarious* to this day and a must-see.

Other Keaton gems: The General, many others.

As far as recently released films, it's probably the most overlooked of recent favorites. It's based on the autobiography of Chuck Barris. I think all autobiographers shade the truth a little but Chuck is more creative than most...or hell maybe it's even true, who knows.

Michael Mann's horror movie. Its much more than just a monster flick. It has a plethora of parallels alternating throughout the film. There is even a question (for a time) of whether the fiend is a fiend or a saviour.

from a Richard Condon book (Prizzi's Honor, Manchurian Candidate, Condor...)


Starring Jeff Bridges & John Huston.

Can't find it on video for the life of me.

I was floored by that movie...love it, love it, love it. It does have somewhat of a cult following, which is nice to see it getting some recognition.

I also think Return to Oz was a great movie. I actually like it better than the original, but I am a total 80s child with a penchant for the array of wonderfully dark children's movies that came out of that era.

Kevin Costner gives the performance of his life in this film. It deals with
issues of fatherless men, and assumes the old-fashioned radical notion
that people aren't born bad but are made so by poverty, neglect, and
abuse. I think a lot of people didn't like it because the Costner character
is capable of both genuine evil and tenderness towards a child--more
complexity than can be handled these days.

A British comedy of the late 60's in which the survivors of WWIII try to carry on with society. Jam-packed full of bizarre humor.

which is of course blown away by Jackson's version, but IMO has a lot of things to recommend it still. The animation throughout most of it was great. A lot of people complained about how the characters were represenmted when it first came out, but I think that is in part due to fandom, and Bakshi's animation skills outweight the character portrayals.

An Alan Parker film, circa 1989, about Irish musicians playing soul music in the slums of Dublin.

It's wonderful, beautiful and funny, and the music is FANTASTIC.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

nt

:hi:

It should be a classic. Leary, on the run from the police, kidnaps a bickering couple in a Connecticut suburban nightmare.

It's my family's Christmas movie.

Sam Waterson, great film, not a popcorn film, but a great work.

also, THe Seven Faces of Dr. Lao

Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern and Rick Ducumon become suspicious about the secretive new neighbors (Henry Gibson, Brother Theodore and their
goatish offspring). I can watch that one repeatedly.

From the early '80s. Jeff Bridges and John Heard. Post Viet Nam/counter culture conspiracy and skulduggery in Santa Barbara.

I could name several others...but I'll stick to this for the moment.

I love both of these, and I'll be surprised if anyone has even heard of the first one. (It only played at one theater in the whole Boston area when it was out.) The movie is a riot, and the cast includes Samuel L. Jackson, John Turturro, Nick Turturro, Anne Meara, Michael B____ (I forget his name; the guy who plays Jimmy in The Practice). The story is about a young guy who comes back to his old neighborhood (after going to film school) to make a film about the neighborhood, then he gets caught up in the neighbors' search for a missing kid, 'One-eyed Jimmy.' I laughed by butt off during this one.

"Kiss Me Guido" got a little bit more attention, but not a whole lot. It was about an Italian guy (from Brooklyn?) who wants to be an actor and moves into Manhattan after answering an apt/roommate ad in which he thinks "GWM" means "guy with money." That was a riot too.

A French film, released in 1976. The Amazon.com review says:

Critic Pauline Kael neatly summed up the timeless appeal of François Truffaut's 1976 film by calling it "that rarity--a poetic comedy that's really funny." In other words, Truffaut's brilliant, upbeat study of resilient children in a French village is both artistically satisfying and joyously entertaining, proving yet again (after his acclaimed debut film The 400 Blows) that few directors remembered and understood the experience of childhood as clearly as Truffaut. The film's episodic structure reveals its young characters gradually, leaving them and returning to them as their individual stories unfold. Most of the sketches are hilarious (as when a little girl uses a megaphone to announce that she's been "abandoned," resulting in generous gifts of food from her surrounding neighbors), but there's also a story about a boy with abusive parents who learns to survive by his own ingenuity. Throughout, this remarkable film gets all the details precisely right, featuring a youthful cast of kids who don't seem to be acting at all. It's as if Truffaut had somehow gained privileged entrance into their world, and they carried on as if the camera simply wasn't there. (Another French film, Ponette, would achieve a similar, more heartbreaking feat two decades later.) --Jeff Shannon

This is truly a heartwarming film and I recommend it highly.

A blaxploitation drama - and it works.

Written by Michael Tolkin (who also wrote The Player and The Rapture), with great performances by Laurence Fishburne (when he was still Larry), Jeff Goldblum, and "Link" from The Mod Squad as an aging fundamentalist detective. Find it if you can.

I forgot about that one, when voting for Freeway (Reese Witherspoon and Keifer Sutherland)

El Mariachi is the #1 in what was to become the trilogy including Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

GREAT movie - and the entire thing was done for $7000.

Nick Nolte and Debra Winger and Emmet Walsh

pretty faithful to the Steinbeck book of the same name

no one mentioned boondock saints?

My favorite Steinbeck novel, so I was glad they didn't totally screw it up. Actually a blend of "Cannery Row" and "Sweet Thursday". Dr. John performed the music, IIRC.

starring Christian Slater. A displaced teen (family moved out west for Dad's job) and he copes by becoming a pirate radio DJ and turns the local high school upside down. An excellent film with its signature lines: "So be it!" and "Talk hard!"

nt

An obscure Japanese animated children's film that's sold in this country in terrible cheesy packaging. It's beautiful, there are no villians of any kind, and everyone is always nice to each other. In spite of being so wholesomely nice, it's a wonderful and engaging fantasy about two little girls who move into a haunted house--haunted in a totally unthreatening Japanese way. Oh, and there's a giant cat that's also a bus. I buy this movie for every child I know and it invariably becomes a favorite. It's particularly good for the 3-to-6-year-old set.

Amazon has it for only $12.99:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00003CXCZ/qid%3D1079538445/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-0023473-5802266

Also, it's on Ebert's list of 100 great movies:

http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/greatmovies/

Only in America. This is one of the highest grossing films ever in Japan. It is a master work.